Sandusky appeal focuses on Victim 2's conflicting statements

Jerry Sandusky's lawyers are focusing on conflicting statements from a man who settled a child sex abuse claim with Penn State but didn't testify at Sandusky's criminal trial

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — A man who says he was the boy observed being sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky in a Penn State shower more than 15 years ago gave conflicting statements to authorities and was considered to lack credibility, investigators said during an appeal hearing Monday.

The man has settled with Penn State based on a claim that he is Victim 2 and was seen by graduate assistant Mike McQueary being attacked by Sandusky, then an assistant football coach, in 2001. The man gave differing statements to Sandusky's lawyers and to police investigators, according to testimony, and neither side called him to the stand during the 2012 trial.

The identity of Victim 2, and the man's claim to be Victim 2, figures into Sandusky's bid for a new trial or to have charges dismissed because of a reference during lead prosecutor Joe McGettigan's closing argument before a jury convicted Sandusky of 45 counts of abuse involving 10 victims.

McGettigan told jurors there were "others unknown to us, to others presently known to God but not to us." The appeals hearing is Sandusky's chance to prove his claim that McGettigan was referring to Victim 2 and so he knew that statement was false.

The man who claims to be Victim 2 contacted Sandusky's then-lawyer, Joe Amendola, soon after Sandusky was first charged in November 2011 and gave a statement saying he was in the shower that night but had not been abused. He had also made a similar denial of abuse to investigators in September 2011, testified Cpl. Joseph Leiter, a retired state police investigator.

But he subsequently hired attorney Andrew Shubin, who testified Monday on the second day of the hearing that he believes his client is Victim 2 and was raped by Sandusky, who was in court. He is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence.

Asked if he had any doubts, Shubin said he was not sure how to answer that. But he said the man is his client and he would not represent anyone he did not believe.

Shubin declined to answer when asked whether he ever tried to hide the man's whereabouts from police and prosecutors, citing attorney-client privilege.

"I have never spoken about that issue and never waived that privilege," Shubin testified.

Anthony Sassano, an agent with the attorney general's office, testified that he heard from someone — he said he wasn't sure whom — that the man was "hidden at hunting camp somewhere so we couldn't find him to interview him."

Sassano said that the man contradicted himself to agents when asked if he ever told anyone of abuse and that his drawing of the locker room where he claims to have been seen by McQueary did not fit the actual Lasch Building locker room.

That "led me to believe he was never in that particular locker room," Sassano testified.

Prosecutors did not find the man credible, Sassano said.

"I don't know if they formed their opinion off my opinion or they had their own separate opinion," Sassano said. "We all arrived at the same conclusion."

Testimony on Monday also delved into claims of improper leaks of material from the grand jury that investigated Sandusky before he was charged. The hearing is expected to conclude Tuesday.

Sandusky testified during the first day of the hearing and strongly denied his guilt. He has already lost direct appeals to the state's Supreme and Superior courts and is now seeking relief under the Post-Conviction Relief Act that is confined to newly discovered evidence, constitutional violations and ineffective lawyering.